


The other way around

by soulofaminaanima



Series: Bright People verse [2]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Canon as of episode 24, Frumpkin get's stuff done, Gen, Trent's a dick, Yasha and Caleb focussed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-28
Updated: 2018-06-28
Packaged: 2019-05-29 21:37:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15082244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soulofaminaanima/pseuds/soulofaminaanima
Summary: A lovely comment got me to write this, so thank you.“What would have happened if Caleb had seen Yasha through Frumpkin’s eyes?”





	The other way around

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gerbilfriend](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gerbilfriend/gifts).



> In the last one, it didn’t have a lot of Yasha speaking. I tried to write it as canon as possible, but it might look bad. So what do you think of it?  
> Still not that good with English grammar, so I might need help finding mistakes. This story does not contain any violence, but there’s a small description of a torture room and Caleb’s catatonic state, so if that’s not your forte, please be warned. 
> 
> Thank you for Gerbilfriend for your lovely comment.

Caleb is convinced Frumpkin might’ve been the first and only good magical thing that happened to him since ‘waking up’. After everything that happened, after getting back his memories of before, Caleb refuses to use magic at all, for a very long time. It only brought up unpleasant memories or created negative interactions. Not all people where happy with a magic user in their town and Caleb thought they were not wrong. 

The only town he tried to visit had reacted badly when his nervousness set off his magic. Flames licked on his fingers and a woman who saw had screamed. Caleb ran immediately.  
Staying in the wild had been bad also; where accidentally creating fire had scared him, invoking it on purpose for the first time to create his meagre campfire had set him off on memory lane. It had taken him an hour to escape the visions of burning houses and terrifying screams and only because of Frumpkin’s gentle nudges. 

Being unaware of using magic was still terrifying, but Caleb had to admit that accidentally slipping into his cat’s head was a lesser evil. The first and only time it happens, Caleb isn’t even aware it’s Frumpkin who is seeing the grim woman. No, it must’ve been a dream, or nightmare of some sorts: the cell looks cold and damp and Caleb can hear the dripping of water somewhere off in the distance. The muscly form of the woman lays sleeping on a hide of some animal. There are patches of something dark and dried on the fur and Caleb wills himself to come closer. Is the woman hurt? Does she need help?

Maybe walking up on a sleeping person in a prison cell isn’t the smartest thing, but he’s too curious for his own good. Right as Caleb stands in front of the sleeping figure, she wakes up: one icy blue and one vibrant purple eye stare at him before they both recoil. The woman pushes herself back against the wall and Caleb falls out of his familiar’s head. The last thing he hears is a cut-off curse in Celestial – “Damn that cat, you-!” – before he wakes up.

Caleb shoots up from his spot in the grass. The moon illuminates the field he set up camp this day and the soft light reflects in the eyes of the cat that rests upon his chest. Frumpkin’s gaze is soft and comforting, waking over their campsite with a vision much more accustomed to the dark nights. 

“It’s just a dream, Caleb.” The wizard mumbles to himself, before falling asleep again. 

…-…-…

Yasha is gone.

Trent took her with just a single question and now she’s gone. No one can find her and Molly is freaking out and Jester yelled at two guards already and Caleb cannot understand how he could’ve been so stupid. 

Of course traveling to Rexxentrum was always going to be a danger, with Nott and her barely holding disguise, Jester and Fjord with their illegal guardians and his own past with the city, it must’ve been a miracle to get out without at least one or two incidents.

The guy that walked up on Yasha, Molly and Fjord while they were browsing a market didn’t even look that dangerous. His question: “Master Ikithon would like to speak to you, if you’d follow me, please?” is loaded with magic and Yasha follows him without a second thought. Clearly not in her right mind and unable to shake off the magic that took a hold of her so long ago.

Molly tries to stop them from walking out of the place, but another enchantment takes a hold of the tiefling when the student turns to him. “You can stay here and not make any fuss, okay?”  
It takes Molly a full five minutes to shake off the effect, but Yasha is long gone by then. They scatter to find the others and the Nein reconnect near the cart where Molly explains what happened.

Back in the car, Caleb can’t shake the feeling that he’s missing something. He feels responsible for letting Yasha be taken. Beauregard had told him to fight the monster that once was his mentor so he wouldn’t be able to use his magic to take any other people, yet he’d failed and let Yasha get taken. 

There must be a way to get her back, but how? There must be a way to locate her, he knows there’s magic for that, but nobody of the Nein know such magic. There were ways to learn; locating and scrying spells, or something like an instant teleport to transport them to Yasha. 

They’re quiet for a moment, thinking of solutions to get their barbarian back. Caleb thinks about all the places Trent could’ve taken her. So many in this city alone. All he can imagine is Yasha in a cell somewhere, waiting for Trent to interrogate her about her life in Xhorhas. His fingers itch as they always do when Trent enters his thoughts, Caleb moves his hands to summon Frumpkin to distract him.

The visual is easy to imagine: the bars, the dark room and Yasha on a cot made of hide in the corner. In fact, it’s very easy to imagine it. Caleb freezes his hand mid-air. It’s almost as if he’d seen her in such a place before-

“You can see her!” He blurts out. Mollymauk, who had settled across form the wizard, looks up in confusion. “Pardon?” the tiefling tilts his head.  
“Frumpkin.” And with that, Caleb finally snaps his fingers and the red fur of familiar appears in front of them. Caleb picks him up and holds the cat close so they look directly into each other’s eyes. Blue meets yellow as Frumpkin awaits Caleb’s command.

“Okay little one, I really need this to work, so.. Do you remember the night you showed her to me? Way before we knew her?” He’d forgotten about it when they met the woman in Trostenwald, but now he remembered with such clarity.

Nott and Beau turn around from the driving box of the wagon, curious as to what is happening. They look at Molly, who returns their confusion with a shrug of his shoulders. They all look hopeful, but not sure what’s going on. Caleb ignores them all completely.

“I need you to show her to me again, find out where she is.”

Frumpkin blinks once, before wiggling out of Caleb’s hold. The cat does not move far from them, settling in the cart. For a while Frumpkin just stares at Caleb, before his gaze switches to a spot somewhere to Molly’s left. Taking that as his cue, Caleb slips into the senses of his cat, leaving the world behind him. 

At first glance, Caleb assumes he’s back in one of his nightmares. He forgets it’s Frumpkin that has brought him back to this place he despises so much: the interrogation cells beneath the Rexxentrum training grounds. It’s not the countryside mansion they spent most of their time at, but it’s close enough.

The place still looks the same: manacles and chains hang from the ceiling and the workbench against the far wall is covered in several devices used for ‘extracting information’. If Caleb moved closer to the table, he’s sure the same old blood stains would adorn the wood. Some of which he’d helped placing there. 

The chair in the middle of the room is no longer made of wood. The new metal shines dimly in the light that peeks underneath the locked door. And Yasha sits there, posture straight and seemingly unyielding as she awaits the arrival of someone. 

Caleb commands Frumpkin to move around so he can see her face better, mindful of the space in the cart they are still in. Yasha’s expression is closed-off and her two coloured eyes are focussed on the door in front of her. The blue eye is almost completely closed off with the giant bruise that must be stinging like a stirge. 

As Frumpkin walks around, Yasha’s gaze, strangely, follows the cat. Caleb frowns, can she see him? The woman doesn’t say anything, doesn’t ask Frumpkin to go get help, or something alike. She just stares at the cat, as if she’s trying to remember what he looks like: the different spots on his back, the stripes on his tail. Caleb holds his breath as he feels her intense gaze move over them. Yasha and he are much alike. Not liking too much interaction, eye contact can be hard, but right now could be the first time they actually really look at each other. 

Then, Caleb hears the door creak – still a familiar sound – and Frumpkin whips his head around. Standing in the door opening is a young human boy. His olive skin and long black hair give him a stern look, but he couldn’t be older than twenty. With a jolt, Caleb comes to the conclusion that this must be one of Trent’s new students: a new him.   
The student moves further into the room and Caleb freaks out, knowing what is to come. He really doesn’t want to leave Yasha, but there’s not much he can do but stare in horror as the student moves towards the working bench, still not saying anything. Caleb knows the technique the boy is using; letting the tension build and waiting for the prisoner to speak first. 

But before Caleb can hear or see what happens next, his vision slips away from the room. He’s still in Frumpkin’s head, but the dark walls make room for the streets of Rexxentrum. Nott and Beau stare at them and Caleb pulls himself back into his own head. The others notice immediately and move their gazes towards their wizard, being used to the small changes in their body language to know where Caleb’s mind is at. 

“…And?” Beau’s voice sounds impatient, but hopeful. 

“I need you to turn the cart around and drive us back into the inner city, I know where he’s keeping her.”

…-…-…-…

In the end, it’s fairly simple to get Yasha back. Trent isn’t even in the manor when they beak the doors down, the only staff on hand are a few servants and the student in the basement with their friend.  
Caleb’s conflicted about the absence of his old mentor. Does he want to confront the man now? Beau certainly seems to be down for a round as she basically breaks everything on their walk through the house. Caleb leads them straight to the basement, not wanting to leave Yasha in there for any longer, but Beau still manages to ‘knock over’ two vases, a glass cabinet with weird looking dolls and a small bookcase. 

The student in the basement doesn’t stand a chance against their volley of attacks and hits the floor within six seconds, unconscious. Caleb dispels the magic on the locks that keep their friend trapped and Nott opens them with fast precision. They’re in and they’re out in under ten minutes. Beau smashes the full length mirror in the hallway for good measure.

Getting out of town is just as simple; Jester takes the reigns as she moves the cart to the east. They don’t stop until it’s dark and too dangerous to travel further. Yasha’s fairly quiet – not that she’s always quiet – as they set up camp. She mostly follows Beau around and helps where she can, but she has yet to say anything besides the ‘thank you’ she gave them.  
Nott and Jester hug her before they nestle themselves into their sleeping bags. “Wake me up if any bad sorcerers try to take you again.” Nott tells them before she falls asleep. It takes Yasha until the second watch before she prompts anything. 

“How did.. how did you find me?” Yasha’s voice is soft and lilted in her Celestial accent. The others are sleeping as Caleb and her take the second watch of the night. The fact that Yasha uses Celestial isn’t too weird. They’ve talked like this a few times before, mostly when they didn’t want the others to hear. 

“I asked Frumpkin to find you for me.” Caleb answers in Celestial also. To him, his Celestial always sounds more like speaking a melody and less like real singing as Yasha can. Yet, his Celestial is more practiced and fluent in comparison to hers. Maybe if they practiced more, they’d be able to make it sound like a real song for the others.   
“He can do that? Find people?”

“No, not really. He only ever showed me you once years ago. It was weird, familiars aren’t supposed to work like that. They can only show what they are seeing and since Frumpkin was with me in the cart-”

“So… you never saw other people like that? Spectral people?” her voice sounds serious and urgent. Caleb cannot see her face in the darkness, but he knows the piercing look she can give others now. “No. Was I supposed to?”

“No, of course not.” The barbarian answers court. Caleb can feel she’d wish to end the conversation there and go back to their quiet watching, but something pushes him to ask.  
“Is it important to you?” Yasha does not back away, but also gives no answer. She waits patiently for him to drop the question or inquire further, sitting unmoving.

“Do you see others like that? Is that a-ehm.. a winged thing?” Caleb refers to the magics of Yasha’s wings they first saw all those months ago. Those had been spectral and also not something Yasha was used to. The Celestial was also a surprise, but again, Yasha seemed to know as much as them when it came to her magical powers.

“I mean.. I don’t see you all the time, actually a lot less these days…” Yasha trailed off, clearly not knowing how to answer. Caleb has no idea if he’s prodding too much, but his curiosity takes the upper hand.

“So- so see us, you saw Frumpkin, as some kind of vision?” 

“Not really?” her answer sounds a lot more like a question. “I can still see everything that goes on around me, but sometimes you, or Nott or any of the others walk around when you’re not really there. Like ghost.”

“And it’s just us, the Nein?” she nods at his question. “For how long have you been able to see us like that?” 

“ehhm.. I- I was young.” Her answer comes soft as she ducks her head and the conversation falls still once more. Gods, this feels awkward: two of the most socially inept members trying to have a deep share of feelings. 

“I don’t know.. dates or exact times,” Yasha picks up after a while “but I saw Fjord when he drowned and Jester when she ran away from home. I was there when you met Nott.” Caleb looks over at the sleeping form of his companion, wondering what that moment would’ve looked like for an outsider.

Yasha raises her hands in the darkness. “But I never heard anything that the bright you’s said! I never.. tried to snoop around or anything.” She breaks a few trick as she’s saying it. Caleb is not sure what he’d think if Yasha did know personal information about them. Should he feel annoyed with her? Glad that even if it did feel like it, he was never really alone?

“It must’ve been weird for you to meet us, though.”

“I found Molly because of the bright Molly, so I think it’s not that bad. It was nice to.. to have people.” She winces at her own statement, but Caleb doesn’t mind the weirdness of the situation. 

“So, ‘bright’ us, you said?” he says with a smile and a little bit of teasing.

“I was young when I thought up that name, but you were all bright people, since you shine light and all that.” The tension of just moments before seems to bleed out of their conversation. Yasha huffs out a small cloud of condense as she laughs. “I mean look at all of you now. You, ehm you saved me back there. When I, you know? You still shine a very bright light on my life, so. Thank you”

Caleb doesn’t immediately know how to answer to that. How could he describe the effect Yasha’s presence has on the group? The way Beau can’t keep her eyes off the woman, or how Fjord trusts her to have their back in all situations. How Nott would look around, searching for a familiar face in the crowds. The way Jester rushes towards Yasha every time she returns to offer her a trademark Jester hug, or how Molly seems to open up and relax more when she’s around, clearly seeing her as his best friend.   
“I think, Yasha,” Caleb starts slowly, “you greatly underestimate your own light you shine upon this little group.”

**Author's Note:**

> @ghostofaminaanima on tumblr.


End file.
